-One of the most common crimes here in Dar es Salaam is policemen tag teaming you—one will wave you through a red light while his partner will stop you a few hundred meters down the road for following his buddy’s orders. Good luck getting that right. Another day, another bribe.
-And speaking of crime: breaking into houses is not only possible, but quite common, especially if all the man needs is the opening the size of a sheet of paper. This was demonstrated for our own benefit not too long ago.
-The Ebola virus has not reached Eastern Africa yet, and people hope it can be contained on the other coast. A tabloid here already spread a false rumor that it had spread to Tanzania—they need to sell papers, right? I know the name of the paper will be on somebody’s hit list. What is still quite frequent is the spread of HIV. Estimates of people infected range anywhere between 3-5 million people, not less than five percent of the total population. So you think HIV was just a passing fad in the 80’s?
-We have two new cats: Zelda and Catniss P. Everdeen. And Catniss is starring in a special ‘Hunger Games’ episode of her own. You will very rarely find her not hungry.
-Tanzania is clearly one of the ‘bucket list’ countries for most tourists I’ve talked to. That’s the first expression you’ll hear whenever you ask them why they’re here. Not ‘Kilimanjaro’, or ‘Serengeti’, or ‘Zanzibar’. Nope, had to be a bucket. The one they will kick, hopefully after they’ve visited this country.
-Here they are arresting terrorist suspects at an alarming rate. I doubt very much that they’ve disappeared after the embassy bombing here in ’98. They seem to be part of an organization named Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation, or Uamsho for short.
-Filed under ‘That took a while’: None other than the US has finally relented that yes, just maybe, they are involved in the illegal ivory trade. After China, the U.S. is supposedly the largest market in the world for wildlife products. Good thing they finally admit to this. The elephant was in the room long enough…that is, until it was finally poached.
-Filed under ‘Don’t call me an altruist!’: General Electric has announced that it will invest two million smackers in Africa to promote its infrastructure, worker skills, and access to energy. I suppose we don’t need two guesses as to which of these three target fields will receive the lion share of the money (little hint: it’s the energy, stupid.).
-The Tanzanian youth’s top priorities: jobs, sex, and money, although not necessarily in that order. I suppose all three of them would equal happiness, or is that too general a term and not quantifiable?
-The one person you don’t want to be in Tanzania. A foreigner from Uganda? No. Malawi? Guess again. How about South Africa? Guess again. All right, a mzungu maybe? Probably not. But what is brutal is being an albino in this country. I don’t even want to imagine what these people have to put up with.
-This one to be filed under ‘Be careful what you wish for’: Tanzania has been identified as one of the mineral richest countries in Africa. Oops. I’m thinking gemstones here.
-And speaking of crime: breaking into houses is not only possible, but quite common, especially if all the man needs is the opening the size of a sheet of paper. This was demonstrated for our own benefit not too long ago.
-The Ebola virus has not reached Eastern Africa yet, and people hope it can be contained on the other coast. A tabloid here already spread a false rumor that it had spread to Tanzania—they need to sell papers, right? I know the name of the paper will be on somebody’s hit list. What is still quite frequent is the spread of HIV. Estimates of people infected range anywhere between 3-5 million people, not less than five percent of the total population. So you think HIV was just a passing fad in the 80’s?
-We have two new cats: Zelda and Catniss P. Everdeen. And Catniss is starring in a special ‘Hunger Games’ episode of her own. You will very rarely find her not hungry.
-Tanzania is clearly one of the ‘bucket list’ countries for most tourists I’ve talked to. That’s the first expression you’ll hear whenever you ask them why they’re here. Not ‘Kilimanjaro’, or ‘Serengeti’, or ‘Zanzibar’. Nope, had to be a bucket. The one they will kick, hopefully after they’ve visited this country.
-Here they are arresting terrorist suspects at an alarming rate. I doubt very much that they’ve disappeared after the embassy bombing here in ’98. They seem to be part of an organization named Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation, or Uamsho for short.
-Filed under ‘That took a while’: None other than the US has finally relented that yes, just maybe, they are involved in the illegal ivory trade. After China, the U.S. is supposedly the largest market in the world for wildlife products. Good thing they finally admit to this. The elephant was in the room long enough…that is, until it was finally poached.
-Filed under ‘Don’t call me an altruist!’: General Electric has announced that it will invest two million smackers in Africa to promote its infrastructure, worker skills, and access to energy. I suppose we don’t need two guesses as to which of these three target fields will receive the lion share of the money (little hint: it’s the energy, stupid.).
-The Tanzanian youth’s top priorities: jobs, sex, and money, although not necessarily in that order. I suppose all three of them would equal happiness, or is that too general a term and not quantifiable?
-The one person you don’t want to be in Tanzania. A foreigner from Uganda? No. Malawi? Guess again. How about South Africa? Guess again. All right, a mzungu maybe? Probably not. But what is brutal is being an albino in this country. I don’t even want to imagine what these people have to put up with.
-This one to be filed under ‘Be careful what you wish for’: Tanzania has been identified as one of the mineral richest countries in Africa. Oops. I’m thinking gemstones here.
